United Nations World Water Development Report

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Lord makes the point about ODA cuts on most occasions when we debate. He is absolutely right to and, like him, I would very much like to see a return to the 0.7% spending—but that is something over which I am afraid I have no control. I do not think it is the case that water has been disproportionately cut. It may well be that the noble Lord is not aware of some of the programmes that directly overlap with this agenda but would not necessarily be described as water projects—not least, a whole new range of nature-based solutions that the Government are focusing on.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, does the Minister recognise that the expansion of population has not been marked by an expansion of water availability? One way in which that could be tackled is by putting more money into desalination programmes of the United Nations and other agencies to try to get more water processed from salinated water to drinkable water.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My noble friend makes an important point. There are lots of ways in which we can alleviate that problem. I add to his suggestion that the most important focus is to concentrate on the environmental link between water shortage and environmental degradation. To put that in context, the Congo Basin provides around two-thirds of Africa’s rain, so if we allow it to continue to be cut down at the rate it is currently being cut down—half a million hectares a year—one only needs to imagine the humanitarian crisis that would follow.